Zombies: a philosopher's guide to the purpose-driven undead

Don’t dismiss zombiecore as lowbrow.

Ryan Stark

Ryan is the author of A Guidebook to Monsters: Philosophy, Religion, and the Paranormal.

A regency woman dabs her mouth with a bloody hankerchief.

Lilly James in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Lionsgate.

Writing from his new book, A Guidebook to Monsters, Ryan Stark delves into humanity’s fascination for all things monsterous. In the second of a two-part series, he asks what and where zombies remind us of, and why they caught the eyes of C.S. Lewis and Salvador Dali

On how Frankenstein’s monster came to life nobody knows for sure, but he is more urbane than zombies tend to be. Nor do Jewish golems and Frosty the Snowman count as zombiecore. The latter sings too much, and both are wrongly formulated. Frosty comes from snow, obviously, and the golems—from mere loam, not what the Renaissance playwrights call “gilded loam,” that is, already pre-assembled bodies, which is a zombie requirement. Tolkien’s orcs function likewise as golem-esque monsters, cast from miry clay and then enlivened by the grim magic of Mordor. We do not, for instance, discover scenes with orc children.

And neither is Pinocchio a zombie, nor Pris from Blade Runner, but dolls, automatons, and C3POs border upon the land of zombies insofar as they all carry a non-human tint. Zombies, however, carry something else as well, a history of personhood, and so in their present form appear as macabre parodies of the human condition writ large. They are gruesome undead doppelgangers, reminding us of who we are not and perhaps—too—of where we are not. Hell is a place prepared for the Devil and his angels, Christ tells us in the book of Matthew. And maybe, subsequently, for zombies.

Kolchak, in an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker aptly titled “The Zombie,” correctly discerns the grim scenario at hand: “He, sir, is from Hell itself!”

C.S. Lewis pursues a similar line of thinking in The Problem of Pain: “You will remember that in the parable, the saved go to a place prepared for them, while the damned go to a place never made for men at all. To enter Heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter Hell is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into Hell is not a man: it is ‘remains.’” Lewis makes an intriguing point, which has as its crescendo the now-famous line about the doors of Hell: “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of Hell are locked on the inside by zombies.” I added that last part about zombies.

I make this point—in part—to correct those in the cognoscenti who dismiss zombies as a subject too lowbrow for serious consideration.

Not everyone believes in Hell, of course, yet most concede that some people behave worse than others, which also helps our cause. Indeed, part of zombiecore’s wisdom is to show that bad people often produce more horror than the zombies themselves. Such is the character of Legendre Murder, a case in point from the film White Zombie. Not fortunate in name, Mr. Murder runs a dark satanic mill populated by hordes of zombie workers, which is the film’s heavy-handed critique of sociopathic industrialization. The truth to be gleaned, here, is that zombies did not invent the multinational corporation; rather, they fell prey to it.

We might think, too, of Herman Melville’s dehumanized characters from Bartleby the Scrivener: Nippers, Turkey, Ginger Nut, and the other functionaries whose nicknames themselves indicate the functions. From an economic standpoint, their value becomes a matter of utility, not essence, which is Melville’s reproach of the despairingly corporate drive to objectify personhood—of which zombies are an example beyond the pale. They might as well be fleshy mannequins, in fact, and as such provide the perfect foil for the human being properly conceived.

Here, then, is why we do not blame zombies for eating brains, nor do we hold them accountable for wearing white pants after Labor Day, as some inevitably do. They cannot help it—in ethics and in fashion. Perhaps especially in fashion. The best we can hope for in the realm of zombie couture is Solomon Grundy, the quasi-zombie supervillain who holds up his frayed pants with a frayed rope, a fashion victory to be sure, however small it might be, though “zombie fashion” is a misnomer in the final analysis. They wear clothes, but not for the same reasons we do.

The point holds true for Salvador Dali’s zombies as well, most of whom find themselves in nice dresses. I make this point—in part—to correct those in the cognoscenti who dismiss zombies as a subject too lowbrow for serious consideration. Not so. Exhibit A: the avant-garde Dali, darling of the highbrow, or at least still of the middlebrow, now that his paintings appear on t-shirts and coffee mugs. Burning giraffe. Mirage. Woman with Head of Roses. All zombies, too ramshackle and emaciated to live, never mind the missing head on the last one, and yet there they are posed for the leering eye, not unlike those heroin-chic supermodels from Vogue magazine in the late 1990s. Necrophilia never looked so stylish.

The zombie’s gloomy predicament bears a striking resemblance to that of the Danaids in the classical underworld, those sisters condemned to fill a sieve with water for all eternity...

But never let it be said that zombies are lazy. They are tired, to be sure. Their ragged countenances tell us this, but they are not indolent. Zombies live purpose-driven undead lives. They want to eat brains, or any human flesh, depending on the mythos, and their calendars are organized accordingly. No naps. No swimming lessons. Just brains.

But we quickly discern that no amount of flesh will satisfy. There is always one more hapless minimart clerk to ambush, one more sorority girl in bunny slippers to chase down the corridor. In this way, the zombie’s gloomy predicament bears a striking resemblance to that of the Danaids in the classical underworld, those sisters condemned to fill a sieve with water for all eternity, an emblem of the perverse appetite unchecked, which has at its core the irony of insatiable hunger. And as the pleasure becomes less and less, the craving becomes more and more. The law of diminishing returns. So, it is with all vices. The love of money demands more money, and the love of brains, more brains.

And so, in conclusion, a prayer. God bless the obsessive-compulsive internet shoppers, the warehouse workers on unnecessarily tight schedules, and the machine-like managers of the big data algorithms. God bless the students who sedate themselves in order to survive their own educations, taking standardized test after standardized test. And God bless the Emily Griersons of the world, who keep their petrified-boyfriend corpses near them in the bedroom, an emblem of what happens when one tries too mightily to hold on to the past. And God help us, too, when we see in our own reflections a zombie-like affectation, the abyss who stares back at us and falsely claims that we are not the righteousness of God, as Paul says we are in 2 Corinthians. And, finally, Godspeed to Gussie Fink-Nottle from the P.G. Wodehouse sagas: “Many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance, and started embalming on sight.”

From A Guidebook to Monsters, Ryan J. Stark. Used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Essay

Culture

14 December 2023

7 min read

Praying with Jane Austen

From Elizabeth Bennet to Emma, Jane Austen’s heroines often consider their own character then change. As the anniversary of the novelist’s birth approaches, Beatrice Scudeler explores their author's prayers.

Beatrice Scudeler

Beatrice writes on literature, religion, the arts, and the family. Her published work can be found here.

A head and shoulders portrait of a young woman inclining her gaze to one side.

Portrait of a Young Woman in White, 1798, Jacques-Louis David.

In his essay ‘A Note on Jane Austen’, C. S. Lewis argues that the heroines in each major Austen novel go through a process which he terms ‘undeception’, leading them to ‘discover that they have been making mistakes both about themselves and about the world in which they live.’ This can take the form of self-analysis, or of a more explicitly Christian examination of conscience. Elizabeth Bennet or Catherine Moreland may not be constantly described praying, for instance, but they certainly engage in a healthy amount of self-examination. On the other hand, we have a much more explicitly Christian example of repentance in the character of Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, who, after her abandonment by Mr. Willoughby, and having just recovered from a dangerous illness, confesses to her sister that is grateful to have been given the chance to repent and ‘have time for atonement to my God.’ But what about Austen herself? What was the role of self-examination in her own life?

I got my answer earlier this year, when my husband and I went on a Jane Austen prayer retreat at the charming vicarage of Edenham, Lincolnshire. When not engaged in prayer, we spent our time learning about and discussing Austen’s faith, which she practised devoutly throughout her life as the daughter of an Anglican clergyman. Austen’s life was immersed in prayer.

According to Fr. Ed Martin, who hosted the retreat, the Austens would have read through all of the Old Testament once in a year, the New Testament twice in a year, and the Psalms once each month. What’s more, Fr. Ed estimated that, once personal devotion and church services were accounted for, Austen would have prayed the Lord’s prayer about 30,000 times over her the course of her life.

I was also delighted to learn more about one of only twenty books that we know with certainty to have been in Austen’s personal collection – A Companion to the Altar by William Vickers. Austen’s copy, signed 1794, resides at the Princeton University Library; according to Irene Collins, whose book Jane Austen: The Parson’s Daughter (1998) I highly recommend, Austen made regular use of Vickers’ book, which was meant as a guide for Anglicans to prepare themselves spiritually to receive Holy Communion.

I was intrigued to read A Companion to the Altar for myself. What stood out to me is Vickers’ emphasis on self-examination and repentance as crucial to one’s spiritual life, especially leading up to Sundays when a communion service was going to happen. This struck me as being very much in keeping with the experience of the heroines in Austen’s novels which Lewis details in his essay on Austen.

These three prayers also reveal that, for Austen, the key to a virtuous life resides not in blindly sticking to a set of moral rules, but rather in cultivating one’s character.

While thinking about these ideas of examination of conscience and repentance, I was reminded that, thanks to her sister Cassandra, three of Jane Austen’s own prayers have survived. They were penned by Austen as an adult, judging by the handwriting, and would have been written for the purpose of personal or family devotion, especially on a Sunday evening. These three prayers, though brief, reflect – and even clarify – so many of the issues that Austen returns to again and again in her novels: the danger of pride, the necessity of repentance and humility, and more generally, a call to lead a virtuous life. For example, in the third prayer she writes:

Incline us oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

This passage could have been written for Emma Woodhouse herself! After the disastrous trip to Box Hill, where she deeply embarrasses Miss Bates in front of their friends, we are told that the normally confident and even haughty Emma admits that ‘She had often been remiss, her conscience told her so’ and, after much reflection, she experiences ‘the warmth of true contrition.’ Nor does this call to humility apply solely to Austen’s female characters.

While Lewis does not extend his concept of ‘undeception’ to Austen’s heroes, this is clearly what happens to Mr. Darcy by the end of Pride and Prejudice, so much so that, once he has realised the extent of his past pride, he tells Elizabeth, ‘By you, I was properly humbled.’ Similarly, in Persuasion Captain Wentworth admits to Anne Elliot that if he had not been ‘too proud’, their separation need not have been so long, and they might have been able to get married and begin a life together much sooner.

These three prayers also reveal that, for Austen, the key to a virtuous life resides not in blindly sticking to a set of moral rules, but rather in cultivating one’s character, starting by training one’s disposition through habitual practice of certain key virtues like charity, patience, and humility. As Alasdair Macintyre notes in his seminal philosophical work After Virtue (1981), Jane Austen follows ancient philosopher Aristotle in thinking that ‘Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways.’ Therefore, a moral education is not simply about doing what’s right whether you feel like it or not. Rather, it’s an ‘education sentimentale’: it’s about becoming morally mature enough to do the right thing not because you have to, but because you want to. Let me quote here a key passage from the first surviving prayer, in which Austen is asking God for forgiveness and guidance:

Look with Mercy on the Sins we have this day committed, and in Mercy make us feel them deeply, that our Repentance may be sincere, & our resolutions steadfast of endeavouring against the commission of such in future. Teach us to understand the sinfulness of our own Hearts, and bring to our knowledge every fault of Temper and every evil Habit in which we have indulged to the discomfort of our fellow-creatures, and the danger of our own Souls. May we now, and on each return of night, consider how the past day has been spent by us, what have been our prevailing Thoughts, Words, and Actions during it, and how far we can acquit ourselves of Evil. Have we thought irreverently of Thee, have we disobeyed thy commandments, have we neglected any known duty, or willingly given pain to any human being? Incline us to ask our Hearts these questions Oh! God, and save us from deceiving ourselves by Pride or Vanity.

Everything about Austen’s petitions to God in this prayer revolves around the formation of a virtuous character. First of all, she wishes that her ‘repentance’ may be ‘sincere’, and her ‘resolutions’ to lead a more virtuous life ‘steadfast.’ But how are we to achieve such sincere repentance? For Austen, it is through the examination of our disposition. She invites God to bring to her knowledge ‘every fault of Temper and every evil Habit’ in which she has ‘indulged’. As you can see, the focus here is not on resolving never to do one specific ‘bad’ thing again; rather, it is on getting rid of bad habits, so that you will not even be tempted to do that bad thing in the future. This becomes even clearer in the final section I quoted: ‘Incline us to ask our Hearts these questions Oh! God, and save us from deceiving ourselves by Pride or Vanity.’ Achieving virtue is a matter of a sentimental education, in the sense of having the right feelings; for Austen, a devout Christian, this can only happen with God’s aid. Both Lewis and Macintyre, then, got it right. Lewis is right that Jane Austen is deeply concerned with the fictions which we tell ourselves, and which lead us away from goodness. She asks God to save her from ‘deceiving’ herself by ‘Pride’ and, like Lewis shows, whenever one of her heroines falls precisely into this trap, a process of ‘undeception’ always takes place. But Macintyre is also right in pointing out that undeception cannot take place until we train our ‘Hearts’, not just our heads, into a habit of virtue.

What both Macintyre and Lewis guessed from Austen’s novels, we can experience and understand more directly by reading Austen’s prayers. We learn from her direct addresses to God how seriously she took the sin of pride, and how highly the virtue of humility ranked for her. We learn that no true repentance can happen without regular self-examination and confidence in God’s forgiveness. We learn that true virtue can only be gained through habit, and that constancy in practising virtues like humility and charity is crucial, even in the face of our own mistakes. If you are already someone of faith, I urge you to read Austen’s prayers and make use of them in your prayer life. If you don’t consider yourself a Christian, I urge you to read her prayers nonetheless: you may find they help you on your way to the kind of self-examination, without which none of Austen’s heroes or heroines could have achieved happiness.